Slewing bearings are sometimes formed as large-scale bearings with diameters of several tens of centimeters up to meters, in particular in the form of tapered roller bearings. Rollers, preferably cylindrical rollers, may be inserted between the raceways using a through-hole in one of the rings, wherein the through-hole leads directly to a raceway of the ring. The rollers are usually pushed through the through-hole by hand using a finger or two fingers and the diameter of the through-hole is larger than the diameter of the rollers, preferably even larger than the largest distance between two opposing points on the rolling surfaces of the rollers, but at least 1.5 cm to 2 cm such that at least one finger of the assembly worker can be fitted in.
Once the assembly is completed, the through-hole is closed with a plug, and the plug may be fixed with a pin inserted into a small bore in a direction transverse to the through-hole.
A bearing of this type is disclosed e.g. in the document FR 7123270.
The axially inner surface of the plug forms a part of the raceway and completes the latter.
The above method of assembly is currently limited by the length of a finger of a worker and it is impossible to push the roller through the through-hole when the depth of the latter is considerably longer than the length of the finger, e.g. deeper than 7 cm to 9 cm. In the case of tapered raceways, the depth of the through-hole shall refer to the distance between an outer surface of the ring from which the through-hole extends inward to the point of intersection between the through-hole and the raceway which is closest to that outer surface.